Android: Golem (The Identity Trilogy) (14 page)

That was a setback, but Shelly had taught me to cover every base. “So the remains have been scrapped?”

“Not yet. Prices for scrap metal fluctuate. Kind of like the stock market. The best thing a salvage yard can do is buy low, hang onto something till the price is right, then get rid of it.” Conlee shrugged. “For the last two years, the salvage business has done pretty good, and I’ve set up a mechanics shop on the premises. One of my sons got certified for hopper repair. I’ve been helping him.” He grinned a little and I detected pride in his expression. “Kid’s brighter than his old man. He’s been teaching me things.”

“Congratulations.”

“The long and short of it, Detective Drake, is that I haven’t junked that car out. It’s still sitting in the yard.”

“Can you show me?”

“Sure. But it ain’t in the same shape as either one of those images.”

*

Conlee climbed into a refurbished golf cart in front of the small salvage yard office. The vehicle started with a rattle that woke a massive black pit bull lying in the sun by the door. The animal roused itself and trotted over to the golf cart, then hopped in back.

“That’s Barney.” Conlee jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the dog. “He patrols the yard at night. He catches what the seccams don’t.”

The dog watched me with bright interest. Animals didn’t often react well to bioroids because bioroids looked man-shaped, but didn’t carry the same kind of smells—bioroids didn’t sweat and didn’t use cosmetics.

Conlee drove through the maze of stacked, rusting cars with easy familiarity. I studied the cars and hoppers, the trucks from decades gone by, and the large exosuits designed for moving heavy equipment and cargo on docks, near-space exploration, and cargo vessels, and realized that the place had a long history.

The exosuits looked out of place, like fallen iron giants from some mythological tale Shelly would have read to her children. They stood ten meters tall and were half as wide and deep. They were blocky and functional, with no cosmetic streamlining. Pressure hoses lined their arms and legs like veins. They could substitute different hand attachments, but most of these had the cargo clamps designed for latching hold of things.

“You said the salvage yard was a family business.”

Conlee nodded. “My father owned it. His father before him. Six generations of my father’s people have lived here. We’ve seen a lot of things come and go.”

He pointed out his son’s shop, a newer building with its own access road to the main streets as well as a hopper pad.

Then we arrived at the section of the yard where he kept the vehicles that had been smashed into large metal blocks. Dozens of them sat there in tall, yellow grass. Crows perched on some of the blocks and grey-white excrement trailed down the sides.

Barney leaped off the golf cart and gave chase to the crows, stirring them up into a small black blizzard above the cubes.

Conlee took a handkerchief from the back pocket of his coveralls and wiped sweat from his neck. “We’re going to have to look for your hopper, Detective Drake.”

I nodded and stepped into the forest of dead hoppers. I noticed numbers and letters spray-painted on the cubes. “Are these identification numbers?”

“They’re the VINs of the hoppers that were run through the crusher. Like I said, I tend to keep good records. Just in case.”

“That will make it easier.”

*

We found Steven Carmichael’s abandoned, burned-out hopper just after the sun started to dip below the horizon. I was just about to ask for permission to continue searching while Conlee closed down the yard when his son, Keith called out to us.

“I found it. Over here.” Keith was a slightly taller man than his father, but he had the same rugged looks and easy manner. His hair was cut in a wilder fashion and neon animated tattoos covered his tanned arms.

I joined him in the weeds.

Keith turned his flashlight on the cube we’d been looking for and revealed the VIN number written in bright yellow spray paint. The hopper had been compacted into a cube shape roughly 1.4 meters on all sides. The crusher had pushed it in on itself and ironed the features flat, more or less.

I knelt and pried some of the paint from the hopper. Keith helpfully shined his flashlight on my hands and my synthskin stood out whitely. The paint fleck contained the two-tone coat I’d been looking for. I took out an evidence bag, placed the fleck within, sealed it, and labeled it with the proper documentation.

Conlee looked at me. “This is the hopper you were looking for?”

I nodded. “It is.”

“You never said why you were looking for it.”

“Five years ago, it was involved in a hit-and-run that left a little girl dead.”

Conlee took in a deep breath and shook his head. He’d been curious, but I knew that once he knew the reason he regretted having asked the question. I’d learned humans were often like that. They gave up their innocence cheaply when curiosity was involved, or profit, then wished they hadn’t.

“I will need to take possession of this cube, Mr. Conlee. It is now evidence.”

Conlee waved a hand at me. “Sure, sure.”

“I am authorized to pay you for it.”

“No.” Conlee glared at the cube. “I knew that hopper was bad news when Carmichael drove it in here. I just didn’t know how bad. I’ll be glad to get rid of it.”

“I’ll need to arrange transportation.”

“I can do that, too.” Conlee started to walk away.

Keith trotted over to his father’s side. “Let me do it, Dad. I’ll get one of the exosuits and be right back.”

“Okay.”

Keith turned to me. “I’ll haul that cube wherever you want it to go.”

“Let me know how much that will be.”

Keith shook his head. “For a favor.”

“A favor?”

“Yeah. I’ve never gotten to see a bioroid up close and personal. When you get time, if it’s cool, I’d like you to stop in my shop sometime and let me take a closer look at you.”

Conlee raised his voice. “Keith, that’s not something you ask someone like Detective Drake.”

I thought about Keith’s
favor
and the curious interest I had seen in him. It was more welcome than the attention of Human First from that morning. “That will be acceptable, Keith. Within certain parameters—Haas-Bioroid does not give up technical edges.”

The young man grinned. “Cool.” He trotted into the darkness with Barney at his heels.

“I’m sorry about that.” Conlee looked embarrassed. “Kid’s a mechanical genius, they tell me. He was always tearing down things here in the yard. Best thing I ever did was scrape together enough to send him to school.”

“No, it’s acceptable. His curiosity is welcome.” I wondered what Shelly would have thought of the situation. I didn’t know. I realized then that my life would go on without her in it, and I would have many unresolved questions about how she would see things. I missed her input.

*

Full dark had fallen over New Angeles when I arrived at Steven Carmichael’s address. The apartment building was small and old. Graffiti marred the walls and two hoppers sat up on blocks in the street. A small park nearby was overgrown with weeds and I smelled smoke from contraband drugs coming from the area.

A handful of young streetbangers wearing gang tattoos sat on the steps as I went up. They said nothing to my face, but they spoke disparagingly of me when I passed. I ignored them. None of them were wanted for anything.

The elevator wasn’t working. I walked up three flights of stairs to Carmichael’s flat. There were no seccams in the building, and I didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t plug into the building’s sec system to watch over the hallways and stairwells.

I’d thought about contacting Lieutenant Ormond to let him know I was about to make an arrest in the Matti Harcourt hit-and-run, but he’d told me to contact him only if I needed him. As of yet, I didn’t need him.

Usually, two law enforcement people were necessary at an arrest. The precedent was for the safety of police personnel, and for later testimony in court. I had a built-in recording system, and I felt safe enough.

Except for the hit-and-run, Carmichael didn’t have a history of violence. I expected no problems.

The door was scarred, but looked sturdy. I lifted a hand and knocked.

Movement sounded within. A shadow passed over the peephole in the door. The security within the building was exceedingly primitive. “I don’t want anything. Go away.” The voice was coarse from too much drinking and too many cigarettes.

“I’m not selling anything, Mr. Carmichael. I’m with the New Angeles Police. My name is Detective Drake.”

A bloodshot eye stared at me through the peephole. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“You don’t have a choice. I can either talk to you here, or I’m going to take you downtown.”

The eye vanished from the peephole. I knew there was a fire escape at the back of the building. I felt certain Carmichael was running.

I set myself and hit the door with enough force to rip the hinges free. I put a foot on the door as it fell and entered the room on Carmichael’s heels.

He was drunk and not moving with any real agility. I caught him easily without truly getting up to speed. I closed a hand around one of his wrists and yanked him around.

“Let me go.” Carmichael struggled against me. His breath was foul with alcohol. My olfactory systems pulled in his fumes and registered him at below public intoxication levels. There was no law against getting drunk in your own home, but if he offered testimony, I needed to know that it would be admissible.

“You’re under arrest, Mr. Carmichael.” I tripped him and placed him face down on the floor. I took a pair of zip-strips from my pocket and bound his hands behind his back. I yanked him to his feet.

“Arrest? For what?”

“For a hit-and-run five years ago.”

As he looked at me, Carmichael paled. He knew exactly what I was referring to.

I turned my empty palm up and projected a 3D of eleven-year-old Matti Harcourt. “For killing this girl and fleeing the scene.”

“No. I didn’t.” Carmichael shook his head in denial.

“You did. I found the hopper at Conlee’s Salvage Yard, Mr. Carmichael. I have secured it and turned it over to the crime lab. Forspec teams will be going over it. Despite the way you burned it, they will find DNA that will tie the hopper to that hit-and-run.”

Carmichael stared at the image I’d projected in the palm of my hand. Tears filled his eyes and he shivered and would have fallen if I hadn’t held him up.

“No.” His voice was hoarse and rough. “It was an accident. I didn’t see her. The hopper failed out.”

“You misjudged your hop distance due to your inebriation, Mr. Carmichael. The sec vid reveals that.”

“No.” Carmichael got sick and threw up. “I didn’t mean to do it.”

“You could have stopped, Mr. Carmichael. The penalty would have been less if you had.” I grabbed his elbow and marched him from the room. Along the way, I notified Dispatch that I was coming in with an arrest.

*

I was filling out the arrest report at my desk in the basement when Lieutenant Ormond arrived. He was seething, obviously upset at being pulled back into the station after he’d ended his day.

He rolled up his sleeves as he towered over me. I continued working because I had not been told to stop or even been addressed. He cursed, then he put a hand on the desk.

“Stop.”

I stopped and looked at him. The virtual keyboard faded from the desktop. “Yes, sir.”

“Tell me what you did.”

“I closed one of the cold case files, sir. As you instructed.”

“This soon?”

I examined the question. “I’m confused, Lieutenant Ormond. The solution to this case was already long overdue. That’s why it was down here. If anything, I closed the case five years late.”

Ormond closed his eyes as if he were suffering a migraine. “Tell me about it.”

I did. As I did, he tried to calm himself. I kept my report short and to the point, but I covered the details.

When I finished, Ormond looked at me. “Sounds like a good collar.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“But if it
is
a good collar, why did an assistant district attorney call me in?”

I looked over my reports. “I was not made aware that you had been called, or that an assistant district attorney was involved.”

“She is. One of the new kids on the block. She wants to make a name for herself and she’s a hard sell where casework is involved. If she’s calling me, something is wrong with the collar.”

Chapter Twelve

As Ormond had stated, ADA Kristine Winters was relatively young. Her black business suit hugged her trim figure and set off her white-blond hair and red lacquered nails. Shelly wouldn’t have liked ADA Winters because she was a woman who put too much stock in her looks.

I stood beside the lieutenant and Winters in the hallway outside the interview room where Steven Carmichael and his attorney of record sat.